Tuesday, December 25, 2012

“We care about you!”, “Your smile is more expensive than all the treasures of the world.”, “We share the same dreams.”, “We are all equal!”, “We love and care about you!”, “The world hasn’t forgotten you”…
These are some quotes my students wrote for children with special needs.
Teacher:
On Monday, 17 December 2012, at 8:30 am, for the purpose of this year's project; Community Service, my students and I went to FISTA (First Step Together Association). (FISTA is a non-profit organization for individuals with special needs.) We participated in their classes and shared things together, like songs, crafts, emotions, drawings, cards, and letters … We spent our day with them and tried to see the world from their own eyeglasses.
My students understood what individuals with special needs mean, and they discovered that this community is also a part of our community and that we complete one another.
Here are some thoughts, reviews, and description of our visit to FISTA, written by my students.
Students:
-Jamal Yamout, “When we arrived to FISTA, the teachers welcomed us and they divided us into groups. My friends and I joined FISTA’s SE4 class and made new friends. We drew, sang, read stories, and played together. We had a lot of fun!”
-Hiba Soubra, “Our visit to FISTA was an amazing trip. I felt very glad to meet and have new friends.”
-Nivine Omran, “When I visited FISTA, I thought I was going to be afraid of the students, because they were different than us, but when I met them and became their friends I changed my view and opinion about them, because they were children like us; they wanted to play, dream, have fun, and enjoy life. After my trip to FISTA I realized that FISTA’s students were special and they shared the same dreams like ours.”
-Lama Akl, “When I visited FISTA, I saw that children with special needs were very smart and they were able to do things that we couldn’t do, like handmade necklaces, candles, soaps, cards … They did things I couldn’t do as a child.”
-Ghida Itani, “When we went to FISTA, at first I was scared, but then when I met the children with special needs, I was never afraid again, on the contrary I was ashamed that I had bad thoughts about them.”
-Hala Shatila, “I will never forget our trip to FISTA, and I will keep in touch with my new friends at FISTA.”
-Reina Agha, “I will never forget this experience in my entire life. I learned that no matter what is difference between us and FISTA students, we are all friends.”
-Riwa Bleik, “I have to thank my English teacher for giving us the opportunity to visit a school like FISTA that care about children and adults with special needs.”
At the end of our visit to FISTA, FISTA’s principal told us a very wise quote, “The future depends on what we do in the present". And I agreed, since NOW my students know how to behave and help individuals with special needs; most importantly they know how to change the world’s view about individuals with special needs.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The British Council launched its training sessions about Schools Online website at KSPS for two consecutive Fridays. All KSPS teachers and some teachers from other schools in Lebanon attended the training and benefited from the features found in this website.

What is Schools Online?

It is website that fosters collaboration among teachers and students worldwide and help them share their cultures, practices and experiences. To visit Schools Online, click on this link:http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/

Thus, teachers learned how to register to this website, create a profile, find a partner school worldwide, work collaboratively on certain project, and create a new project.

Monday, December 17, 2012

KSPS cycle 2 students got the chance to visit the book fair on the 15th of December. Our students got the chance to choose and buy their own books, they were swimming in an ocean full of books. They were taking their “first steps” in buying books and discovering their favorite stories or genre of books.
They even told me they would like to write and publish their own books in the future.
And I told them, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

Sunday, December 09, 2012

The British Council provided our sixth graders a one-hour dance workshop delivered by Elaine Marcey and Dean Sodin from 4Motion’s contemporary dance theatre . The workshop facilitated warm-up exercises and taught our children movement phrases and choreographic exercises. What is most important is that our children enjoyed their performance. Great thanks for the British Council, Elaine and Dean for their cooperation and for providing this workshop.

Nursery children executed lots of activities related to yellow color. They listened to " The Big Yellow Bus" story, showed yellow objects to their friends, brought yellow fruits, squeezed yellow lemon and drank lemonade. Moreover, they made a yellow collage, lemon print and even more. They had lots of fun.

Thursday, December 06, 2012

After learning about letters Mm,Rr,Ss, and Tt with their sounds, KG2 students celebrated letters in a special day with their parents. It was a yummy day filled with different kinds of food related to these letters. They had a delicious day :)